What about converting the 96mbit Star Ocean GD3 format ROM into the order for burning your EPROMs? You did that manually and if so how? If you made a program to do the conversion that would be appreciated too.

I hate to bring up such an old post, but I was wondering if anyone on here has had any luck with this 96mbit on a standard cart idea? This idea is really interesting, as I'd love to be able to make a Star Ocean repro without using a SO donor. I pm'd shadowkn55, but its been so long he doesnt have the documentation anymore (although he did send me the GD3 header info, thanks!). I was just wondering if anyone on here had tinkered with this any more and got it working properly? Or better yet does anyone have the already re-arranged Star Ocean file anymore?

"linear" in this case just means that A15 is not connected as one of the address pins to the ROM chip, it's ignored.

The weirdest part is is the last ROM map line. It's required for the game to play, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to me to design a cart like that. Perhaps it's a GD3 quirk.

As for the original topic, the max sensible ROM size is 95mbit:00-3f:8000-bfff40-7d:0000-ffff80-bf:8000-ffffc0-ff:0000-ffff

With weirder granularity, you could push it to 110.125mbit:00-3f:4380-ffff (0xbc80 bytes granularity)40-7d:0000-ffff80-bf:4380-4fffc0-ff:0000-ffff

0x5e4000 + 0x400000 + 0x3e0000 = 0xdc4000

With absolutely psychotic granularity, you could grab a few more unused areas:2000-20ff2184-21ff (would even be fetched from a different bus)2200-3fff4000-4015 (slowest speed)4018-41ff (slowest speed)420e-42ff4380-ffff

= 0xdeec bytes/block.

0x6f7600 + 0x400000 + 0x3e0000 = 0xed7600 = 118.73mbit

Anything further will require a memory map controller. Which is really the sensible option after 95mbit. I'd even do it after 64mbit.I find it wasteful and stupid that the S-DD1 and SPC7110 had MMCs for 48mbit and 40mbit games.

NROM-368 uses a comparator IC to approximate "weirder granularity" on the NES: $4800-$FFFF is decoded as ROM.

But beyond 95 Mbit, you'd probably want to consider using a small boot ROM for the game engine and have the cart copy things from a surface-mounted microSD card into RAM. That'd give 16 Gbit for a couple bucks.

"linear" in this case just means that A15 is not connected as one of the address pins to the ROM chip, it's ignored.

The weirdest part is is the last ROM map line. It's required for the game to play, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to me to design a cart like that. Perhaps it's a GD3 quirk.

As for the original topic, the max sensible ROM size is 95mbit:00-3f:8000-bfff40-7d:0000-ffff80-bf:8000-ffffc0-ff:0000-ffff

With weirder granularity, you could push it to 110.125mbit:00-3f:4380-ffff (0xbc80 bytes granularity)40-7d:0000-ffff80-bf:4380-4fffc0-ff:0000-ffff

0x5e4000 + 0x400000 + 0x3e0000 = 0xdc4000

With absolutely psychotic granularity, you could grab a few more unused areas:2000-20ff2184-21ff (would even be fetched from a different bus)2200-3fff4000-4015 (slowest speed)4018-41ff (slowest speed)420e-42ff4380-ffff

= 0xdeec bytes/block.

0x6f7600 + 0x400000 + 0x3e0000 = 0xed7600 = 118.73mbit

Anything further will require a memory map controller. Which is really the sensible option after 95mbit. I'd even do it after 64mbit.I find it wasteful and stupid that the S-DD1 and SPC7110 had MMCs for 48mbit and 40mbit games.

Can't say i quite got it yet.

I open the star ocean 96 mbit rom (without header) in my hex editor.and open a new file to copy all the parts of the SO rom in the correct order.then i look at the first line: address="00-3f:8000-ffff" offset="0x000000"does that mean i need to copy 0x008000 - 0x3fffff?

I think I can understand byuu's GD7 memory map explanation, altough I wonder how he checked it is right, since I couldn't find any information on internet about ExtROM mapping in GD7. In fact, I tried to compare those two lines:

... considering that $7E-7F:$0000-FFFF is the WRAM and it must be blank.

Anyway, just in case I could undo the mapping to build a working SMC file, which emulator would be able to run such a big SMC file?Fusoya released a fixed SNES9x 1.53 version recently which allowed up to 64Mb in ExtLoROM mode, but I don't know any emulator which can reach 96Mbit. I guess the only way to test this SMC file should be making a customized cartridge which supports 95Mbits, right?

My maps are designed for emulation usage, as simulating the logic chips would be too slow, and describing them would be ridiculously hard, let alone others understanding them.

So the idea with my maps are that conflict regions aren't going to occur on real carts, so don't support allowing them. If you are iterating through my list, then you decode WRAM first. If you are building a table of mapped ranges, then you map WRAM last. Either way, banks $7e-7f are always WRAM, regardless of what the map says. The map only looks that way so that the address masks are simpler.

Is star ocean so popular and valuable, would it justify making a cartridge (custom) that had provisions for 96 Meg's (3 x 32 tsop to 36mask) so long as no custom chips are used? Am I understanding this right? I forget who, someone wants to make a SO using a standard cartridge format without special chips?

I am in the process of designing my own cartridge so it wouldn't be too crazy to look into this..... If enough people were interested.

Is star ocean so popular and valuable, would it justify making a cartridge (custom) that had provisions for 96 Meg's (3 x 32 tsop to 36mask) so long as no custom chips are used? Am I understanding this right? I forget who, someone wants to make a SO using a standard cartridge format without special chips?

I am in the process of designing my own cartridge so it wouldn't be too crazy to look into this..... If enough people were interested.

Or have I completely missed the point?

Yes, you got the point. Besides, it's the kind of technical challenge that I like to face.I'm already designing a board with 3 flash memories, but there are some room limitations that I will have to overcome.

Before a cart is made, wouldn't it be prudent to get a working code first ? Or is that not an issue if the cart is made correctly, would the code run as-is?

I would think you could get 3 tsop adapters inside it. I've seen pic's of your board ( I think ) , you use a 16 bit 32m EPROM, right?

Or maybe easier is to mount 2 tsop on 1 adapter board..... Or for that matter, have all 3 on an adapter board (no longer compliant with the 36 pin mask) with decoder also on the adapter....Just thinking out loud....

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